Article Writing - On Site? Off Site? The Better Long Term Benefits

[morestar]

I was reading an article today I must say, I'm a little tossed at this - maybe it's because I've got my food and your food on my plate but whatever the weather, I've been wondering a bit more lately as to whether submitting articles to article directories would be less effective than drafting them and posting them on my site (client sites etc.)...

OK here's my perspective: Twitter and Facebook - well, when they first launched, correct me if I'm wrong but I don't believe Zuckerberg was writing and submitting articles...that came later and generally more so by people not associated with him (i.e. news, hackers etc.).

Did Facebook even need "rankings"? I don't think so. Their popularity was on their site.

So back to article writing, and submitting them on, or off your site and their long term value. Could one really and truly drop off-site article submissions and keep all their content to themselves and simply interlink?

I know the answer could be that the abundance of (good) content in of itself should or will probably get links which in turn would boost it's rankings so my question really is:

Can a website take on the rest of it's competitors as a stand alone page rank "generator" combined with my original question as to the long term value of articles submitted on my site verses an article submission directory.

The connection is if I only submit my articles to my site, is there a chance I could take on my competitors, especially in the long term...


You know what I mean, share your thoughts please?

[keyon]

I'm sure people have strong opinions about this both ways...but lately I've been leaning toward nourishing my own property first. I definitely get links from this strategy -- either from scrapers who are kind enough to include a source link at the end of their piece, or from links I place in the article itself (going back to my site). I think these are probably the most valuable inbound links I have, even if they are few and far between. I guess I'm not as confident about all the article submissions I've made yielding better results. I'm also trying to focus more on contacting individual site owners -- developing real relationships with these people, sharing articles/content, developing joint ventures, etc. My gut tells me the long-term benefit from this approach beats out submitting articles to content farms. But I could be wrong.

[mjtaylor]

I am definitely cooling it on off site articles. I recently launched an onsite blog for a client and all our energy is going to that. And I installed a blog on my own site today, http://www.cyber-key.com/SocialSEO/ for the same reason. Panda has truly cut into the effectiveness of self service links, so we have to concentrate on creating remarkable copy.

[AboutWeb]

I don't use article directories..and most of them are hit by the Panda Update. Many of them accept duplicate content, or articles of poor quality.
Instead, use content in your own blog and eventually engage in guest posting to other blogs. There are some sites, like myblogguest.com where you can find bloggers and content writers.

[NickTyler81]

Why can you do both? Service your own site first and also submitt some articles to the best directories. Can't hurt can it? I Know Panda is knocking the value of self service links but it also likes to see diversity and a little bit of everything "natural" doesn't it?

[henk]

I used to do a lot of article submission to article directories. Whenever I searched google with "title of my article" I would find a good few sites that had taken my article from those article directories, and published them on their site/blog. Most of them had the courtesy to leave my links intact in these articles.

I find this has changed dramatically over time. If I now do a search for one of my articles, almost all of the sites/blogs that have taken my article from these article directories have removed my links. Some just make them in-active, some change the link and point it to a page of their own. There are even a good few that change the author name as well.

I am so sick of this practice that I have stopped submitting articles to directories, and I believe article submission is getting less and less effective. If you submit an article to say, Ezinearticles.com, and 50 sites/blog publish that article as well, without your link, you end up with 51 duplicate articles, and just one link.

If your competitors still do submit articles to article directories, and you only publish them on your site, I think you have a good chance of beating them. You have original content, they have a few links from articles directories, links coming from articles of which there are lots of duplicates.

I think you should publish your articles on your site, and get links to those articles. Find blogpost about the same subject, make a use full comment and mention that you published an article on that same subject. That way your site gets good quality links, to original content, and your competitors get links from duplicate articles.

I do still publish articles at this site http://www.freetrafficsystem.com/a.php?p=19022 but that is different from article directories. My articles are published on blogs, these blog owners have to be a member of this site as well, and if they would remove any links from my article I can complain and those blogs are removed from the system. I find this a much better way of getting links from my articles then by submitting them to directories.

The link above is my affiliate link but there is no financial gain for me if any one should start to use this site (I do get a few more links) I think it is allowed to mention this site